


Gemstone Clock

by Maluucious



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Happy Ending, Inspired by Doctor Who, M/M, Mention of Death, Minor Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Soulmates, Time Travel, mention of fire, other members mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26106316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maluucious/pseuds/Maluucious
Summary: "Tell me, Jongho. What will we do with so much time?"Hongjoong crossed centuries and places to find him back.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Kim Hongjoong
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Gemstone Clock

**Author's Note:**

> Helloooo!  
> I hope you're doing just fine <3 
> 
> This draft has been sleeping on my computer for so long but I finally translated it! I've been partly inspired by a speech made by the Doctor (Matt Smith) in the episode "The Rings of Akhaten" (S7E08, I recommend! 😆
> 
> I hope you like it! Stay safe and have a great day! 🧡

_1945\. Paris. France._

Lost.

He was completely lost.

The crowd was swallowing him, craving after years of diet. It was making him anxious. It annihilated him in shouts of delight. The masses were mixing up the warmth of the Liberation, cheeks covered in tears. While he tried to escape a family meeting in the streets, kissing and hugging each other, he nearly collided with a mother who was running towards a soldier, possibly her son. A small smile on his face, answering quietly to some people, the mysterious boy kept walking quickly, his hands buried in the thin pockets of his canvas pants.

« The War came to an end! »

The population was chanting this slogan as if it was proof of their freedom. Some had already run toward the saviors of Paris and of Europe, eager to see the General. Relief, tiredness, and happiness of finally meeting again were on every face, nearly as much as all the traumas which darkened their eyes during the past years. However, no one could surpass the look of this impassive figure trying to escape those festivities.

« Excuse me, Sir! Is it true? Are the big persons saying the truth? A small boy asked. Are the Germans gone? »

He surely was approximately ten or twelve years old, a kid trying to wear adults' clothing. A cap, way too big for his head, was trying to cover his wet eyes while he sniffed to avoid his sobs.

Jongho squatted down to look at this little napper, curiosity all over his face. With a small yet polite smile, he nodded for all answers, still silent. Then, as if the kid has crossed the finishing line of an exhausting marathon, he burst into tears in front of this stranger without any restraint. His sobs were betraying the loss, the pain, the grief, and the fear that must have been his best friends for so long as they were for everybody there. A kindly hand ruffled his hair to calm him. The young foreigner heard him repeat that his big brother was right and that he wasn't gone for anything.

Without a word, he stayed there. A simple presence for a kid who needed some comfort. This was only when his mother found him, scared to death to have lost her child in the crowd, that he let him go.

Finally alone, he had to fight against the human landslide to reach a small church on the city's heights, sacrificing his jacket by the way without knowing how. He didn't know who took it or if he gave it. He was seeing too many people on that day.

Some heavy wooden doors closed themselves loudly behind him, gaining him some dirty looks from an old lady visibly extremely pious, who was sitting with her knees on the floor to thank the Holy Father for the end of the war. Jongho would have like to tell her that her god didn't have anything to do with this festivity but his implication on such a big day wasn't necessary. He found what he came for. With catlike stealth, he made his way towards the back to go upstairs and finally go home. That day had already been too tiring.

The room he came in was wooded and peaceful compared to the roaring party of the streets. It seemed to wait for the traveler who sat in a velvet armchair in a corner. His eyes staring at his fist, he unfolded his numbed fingers to look at the contrast between his skin and a water drop of a deep and intense blue. Carefully cut, the sapphire was piercing his body, its coldness invading him as if an iced wave had knocked down on him. When Seonghwa told them to find some new Time's Stones, some powerful jewels which carried the imprisoned soul of the last holder, Jongho didn't expect to come back to the end of the war. Neither did he expect to see his friend perish.

Yet, he knew all the legends about the Gemstone Clock and its jewels.

The soul of each traveler was synchronized with a stone that provided them their powers and their memory, giving them a timeless fate. Each crystal was a part of an old clock, linked to it to allow the users to go through ages and eras. But as in every agreement, a due was required. If the traveler's death didn't occur to his original period, the gemstone would ask their mind before shutting it up in this sparkling coffin. This was the rule motivating some souls to venture to these stunning yet magical objects in order to put them back into the Sanctuary where they would wait for a new owner. They could have told each other to go back in time, again and again, until everyone was saved. But Seonghwa didn't allow it. If the changes made by the travelers were changed, then even the slightest would have a big impact on the future and their minds would still incorporate the gemstones.

Jongho touched upon the fire opal which was decorating his signet ring. He was coming back. The familiar warmth enveloping his body comforted the small painful ball in his chest. He knew it. One day, his own soul would rest in the jewel that possessed his heart, like his friend's one who became the eternal prisoner of a bewitching sapphire. Quietly waiting for his travel, he closed his eyes. Unlike the surrounding joy, a tear as painful as the sobs of the kid rolled down his burning cheek. Like this child, he had hoped to see a brother again when he accepted the mission. He couldn't lie. He saw himself in the kid. He saw himself realizing his mission had only been successful to the gruesome price of life he won't see in the future. The sadness had transformed itself into pain before locking itself into the void still visible in his eyes. He was scared. Scared to announce what happened. Scared to entrust the sapphire to Seonghwa. The worst was that he was absolutely terrified to catch Mingi's eyes when he would understand that Yunho would never come back from the France of 1945.

*

_1666\. London. England._

As his emerald fell on his pale skin, Hongjoong put his light shirt on while jumping from the bed. Fuck. He fell asleep. It's been three months since he had landed near the Thames. At first, the thought of adjusting his trip with a closing date on the Clock crossed his mind, however, the traveler finally decided to wait. Wait for the macabre day of the 2nd of September. A Sunday. And it has been one of the biggest mistakes he had ever make. He knew it. Now that fateful day came, he would have to give up on all those people that became his friends and would perish in the flames.

The Great Fire of London.

A date that would mark the destruction of nearly all the capital city because of a simple memory lapse of a tired baker.

For thousands of Britains, the suffering and the panic would be their last friends, escorting them through their painful howls. For those who would escape, the hopelessness and grind would live in their eyes for eternity while looking at their homes burning to ashes.

To Hongjoong's mind, this date would brand him, marking him for life. A salted taste filled his throat, his heart beating furiously to his temples. The screams that started to circle him didn't affect him anymore. His neighborhood's shoemaker tried to stop him, screaming at him to run away before sinking into this devilish fire. However, even with all the sympathy he had had for his during those three months, the traveler would only fight against the strong man who was only thinking of saving his life. Sadly for this hero, Hongjoong wanting to save another soul than his.

« Let me go and leave! Save those who want it! The small traveler spitted out while running away, running right in the burning streets. »

The sky was already tainted by the orangey-red of embers, stained by the black smoke that was already asphyxiating those still alive. Some collapsed wall faces, some broken furniture, a lost cradle in a destructive inferno… The fire was trying to escape the buildings by every possible gap and was becoming impossible to contain, destructing every single ounce of life. This apocalyptic painting weighted Hongjoong's despair down as he ran, out of breath, panicking at the simple idea of arriving too late.

When Seonghwa sent him on this mission, months after the accident that took him everything, he asked himself why. He didn't feel ready. Actually, since the return of a sorrowful sapphire, no one felt really ready. Mingi left them after weeks of mourning in the crypt that became their sanctuary, fed only by Yeosang who was usually taking care of this sacred place where the crystals bloomed. Wooyoung and San, frightened, became closer to each other and hesitated. The wanted to break their vow to pronounce another one. Seonghwa stayed silent. And him, Hongjoong, already trapped by the power his emerald had offered him, comforted himself in his lover's bed. He drowned his sleepless nights into the dark silk sheets where their skin merged with each other just to forget the sorrow. If this had put his pain in silent mode, it hadn't been the case of Jongho whose empty eyes were starring below the horizon when he thought no one was watching.

Yunho's loss announced the decline of their energy.

The accident put Hongjoong in drowsiness broken by some panic attacks.

He avoided just in time the wall that fell down but was violently throned towards the ground, his thin body hitting the beaten earth. As the oxygen left his lungs under the shock, some tears started to drip. All these months where he sought the streets, searching for his own treasure, passed in front of his eyes, like in a bad movie, like a child searching in vain for his Christmas presents. Ignoring the throbbing pain of his hip, he stood up and tried to pursue his running as much as he could while avoiding the flames and the objects covering the streets.

Normally, he would have thought that Seonghwa was going to hate him for the selfish choice he was making. A decision that was breaking their rules. However, the young man didn't want to experience this pain again. He couldn't handle it. A piece of him was still shouting that it was the reason why his friend had sent him there, in 1666. He could have sent another traveler but he chose him to find this cursed gemstone. If Seonghwa's intentions weren't what he imagined, it would have been cruel.

He didn't care that the events had already happened.

As hideous as it was, he couldn't care less about the runaway or the death of the neighbors he had grown to know.

No matter the tragic of the situation and the future of this city now lost in the flames, he couldn't handle seeing his life disappear once again.

His lover and he were really different on this side of things. When Hongjoong would favor his and his close one's interests, Jongho would step aside to comfort children and astray souls. After the loss of Yunho, their compulsion had worsened. The first one hadn't known how to handle the loss of one of theirs, and the second had refused to let innocent people experience the suffering he knew way too well.

The Emerald wearer knew it would have been impossible to reason with him, but hope still shined in his mind, clouded by the suffering circling him, now. A kid had found his mother back and, he knew that this reward had been enough for his lover. However, even while considering that, he couldn't not take him home with him. No matter what Seonghwa would say.

Tears were burning his skin, already mistreated by the heat, drying almost immediately. The traveler howled out of despair as he roamed the blazing fragments. He was shouted his lover's name, the one of the man who had loved him the most and who had taught him to smile despite the horrors of a world they got to see all the facets. His broken heart was close to bursting out of his frail chest, the smoke blurring his sight. He wanted to arrive faster. Why did he have to fall asleep on the night before while he had been there for months? Why did life wish so hard to tear the soul that had completed him like no one before away from him, once again?

He had to go faster.

He had to keep on screaming, full of rage and pain, until he could see a brown-haired boy get out of a burning house, his face darkened by the blaze and his throat irritated by the smoke.

He had to find him.

He had to find him before the crystal asserted his rights.

A scream suddenly made him jump. A child. A child ran in the opposite direction, nearly making him stumbled as he tried to avoid him. A child running away.

He was close.

Doubling his efforts, the traveler lost himself in this luminous hell, his howls disappearing in the maze formed by the destroyed streets. Even with his stone on him, he might not have the time to leave. But that doesn't even matter until he didn't see the round cheeks and the dark yet soft gaze that had haunted his nights.

Hope and terror were tinting his painful shouts, fearing a fire Opal, object symbolizing his despair and love, that was looking at him from afar, abandoned on the burning ground.

*

_Staying here, with the ashes of an opal, is still the hardest ordeal I had to go through._

_I've wandered the centuries to search for you._

_Decades have seen me pass by under different names or contrasting social status._

_The whole world has seen me appear at least once in front of distraught eyes._

_Past. Present. Future._

_Always with this empty gaze and this morgue._

_I've had the opportunity to see the birth of civilizations and the destruction of the mystery surrounding our existence. Atlanteans, Incas…So much population that had buried their secrets with them. I've seen men breathe one's last. I've perceived the suffering of mothers mourning their children and the distress of little girls shaking the lifeless body of a father. I've felt each pain, each fear, and each scream which have all echoed in my body, resonating like a shout in a wet cave._

_I've never shed a tear anymore. My dry eyes have admired those dark and poetic paintings with the coldness of a scientist and a frozen smile. Your signet ring on my finger, my Emerald hidden, I've traversed different ages, hoping to find you. What would happen if I extract you from your present before sending you back when your time would come? Would I even be able to let you go once again?_

_You disappeared in a jewel born in the flames, leaving me with the world available. Irony at its finest. How many lovers had promised each other the whole universe without being able to do so? To us, it was within easy reach. Instead of seeing you wake up every morning in front of a different sky, sheets negligently sliding on your naked skin, I've seen suns die despite the prayers trying to bring them back to life._

_Every languages seem bland, now. Every human's sources of joy seem pointless._

_I'm still here._

_Still pursuing you, through centuries and places, desperately searching for your smile._

_I'm still here._

_The last traveler._

_There are so many stories I didn't get to tell you, so much comfort I couldn't give you. You would have wanted to reassure Seonghwa by saying it wasn't his fault if he had lost us all. You wouldn't have supported to see him cut himself from the outside world as he did. You would have been there to seal Wooyoung and San's vows, while I destroyed their crystals with a blank face, under the impenetrable's stare of Yeosang. But you wouldn't have tolerated seeing us divide our group for your memory._

_I'm the last one. The last of the line. The one recounting the stories to the precedent travelers, telling them how the destiny had gone off course from his initial path._

_You know, I had the possibility to meet the last head of the traveler. Siyeon was a woman with great strength but also an impressive softness. Seonghwa has been his worthy heir, despite the events. You would have really appreciated her._

_She has been the traveler who understood my pain the most, maybe because of the girl she had lost to the crystals, and she let me break the rules of time, the laws of the Clock._

_My eyes are looking for you at each detour, my body is calling you, ready to hold you in my arms in a Florentine cour, to kiss you in a French garden, to draw you near imperial palaces or to give you your love back with the same strength that used to animate you._

_I hear your laugh at each detour, and it's only increasing the wound in my chest._

_Time has its limits but its rules are complex._

_Imagine._

_Imagine that I extract you to your destiny, for five small minutes, minutes that could become years before you save this kid from a monstrous inferno._

_I could observe tears rolling down your cheeks as you would see me in front of you, frail and broken, despite not knowing your future yet, not the tragedy that would be our end._

_Tell me, Jongho._

_What would we do with so much time?_

_This is an answer I'm scared to imagine. Thus, this time, I give up my weapons. I give you my heart back and the Opal that has made you a traveler, my only partner until the end of these five little minutes._

_Salty tears on our cheeks are betrayed so many unsaid words, yet it's your turn to tell me, now._

_What will we do now that we can finally offer each other the world?_


End file.
